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But there is a kingdom to manage and a scar upon his heart, so I leave him to his work and head back to my tower under the wary watch of soldiers.
Most of the ceremonial items have been removed from the tower already, and I only pack up my clothes and savedcoin. I have knickknacks from street festivals and patrons over the years, but nothing I would keep. No letters to remember anyone by, no gifts I like except a small journal Dante gave me. I only wrote on the first page of it. I slip it in between my folded blouses and skirts. I’m almost embarrassed at how unfilled the trunk is when I hand it off to a servant.
I take one last look from the balcony and remember the sight of the Sun Capital from what is—for the last time—the tallest point in the city.
Maybe I’ll see it again in a dream.
The bramble continues climbing up, around and around my tower. By nightfall, it’s covered all the way to the top, and curling, spiked briars spill through the palace’s north gate. The smell of it carries downwind, stinking like rain mixed with gutter water, like dying roses.
I observe the burning from the gardens, close enough to see everything happening but not too close to catch suspicious glares. Soldiers are hacking off the thickest vines, piling dry fuel, and building up a bonfire. I can only see the shape of my tower’s corruption as a shadow against the stars, and soon the silhouette is completely obscured by the smoke.
The boy must die before summer’s end, or you will burn,the Fates told me. But Cyrus is alive and so am I. Was it my defiance of the witch that saved us, or was it what nearly doomed us? How close was that other future?
And is this one really any better?
Everything I worked for wasn’t worth much in the end. I would curse out the stars and the gods who live among them if I thought it mattered.
I understand why others put such faith in the Fates: Don’t we all wish—beyond any gold or fame—to be right? To have some authority tell us with certainty that we’ve done the best we could with the life we have? So we idly listen to kings and gods who tell us what to do, even when we have no idea what their true intentions are. Even if all they want is blood.
It’s easier than figuring it out for ourselves. Easier than carrying the regret when we don’t make the choices we should. For once, I’d happily let someone else make my decisions for me, just so I can blame my mistakes on them. Just so I don’t feel like every choice I’ve ever made was a mistake.
I watch my tower go up in flames as it once did in my dreams.
And I finally cry.
I decide on my own to leave.
Every night, I wonder where the witch is. Every night, I dread sleeping, fearing her voice in my dreams. In that future I saw when I grasped her hand, I was happy but not myself.
She said she saw greatness in our destiny. I doubt she lied—that was the only reason she spared me. Why she gave me a chance to join her. She just didn’t expect to end up in the thread where I turned her down.
Honestly, neither did I.
Wherever my future is, it’s no longer in Auveny. I’m a wandering shadow here, haunted by memories, vexed with helplessness.
Prepping for my departure from the Sun Capital doesn’t take long. My trunk of things from the tower is already packed; I only need to scavenge for daily supplies. I haven’t publicized that I’m leaving, to avoid making an issue of it. I’ll miss Camilla, but we can still correspond. She has other friends, besides.
I don’t have a destination in mind, but I also don’t havemany choices. The borderlands are burning. Crossing through to Balica isn’t an option, and it’s difficult to find northern passage to Verdant. That only leaves the Moon Continent across the sea, where hopefully they’ve heard little of me.
In the palace’s guest room where I’ve been staying, I wash up for the night and get ready for bed. I start unraveling my braid when someone raps at the door.
When I look outside, I nearly slam the door shut again. A hooded figure stands in the hall. But I recognize the hitch of his breath and the shape of the body becomes familiar. “Cyrus?”
Cyrus peels back his hood. The tips of crystal horns glint on the top of his head.
Gaping, I let him in quickly.
He sits himself on the bed, removing his robe. His face is roughening into something bark-like. Rolling up his sleeves, he reveals his arms matted in moss and broken stems where he’s nipped off new growth.
Just like that, I’m shaking again. Of course the blood cure was just temporary, just like how Nadiya’s fairies could only absorb some dark magic away. The curse lives in his heart, constantly pumping through his veins.
I cross the room and dig through the knapsack I packed for a knife. “How long?” I ask, as I pull out a roll of bandages too.
“Skin’s been changing on and off for days. I thought it would go away. But then the horns—”
“Howdid you think it would justgo away,Princey?” I whirl around to him, biting my tongue too late; Cyrus is aking now. “I know you’re dealing with a million tasks, but don’t you think changing back into a beast should be addressed immediately?”
With the knife, I open an edge of the wound on my palm. Outside of urgent danger, cutting flesh hurts more than I remember, and my eyes prickle with tears. Sitting next to him, I give him my hand and he takes my wrist gently. His mouth shapes into a grimace, even though I can hear the lick of his tongue behind his teeth.
